muttley hates software: media players

From: Simon Wistow
Date: 11:51 on 29 Sep 2003
Subject: media players
I tried to limit this to maybe one media player, or maybe just one OS or
something but no, I realised I hate them all. Streaming, static - it
doesn't matter ... I'm an equal oppurtunities hater.
I hate the fact that they all try and grab all the file types. I hate
the fact that half the time a given file is an "unrecognised format", I
hate Real Player for, well, lots of stuff actually but because it trys
to open a file and then goes to "download software from Real.com" and
then fails to do anything.
I hate the fact that I can't drag a file into Quicktime.
Windows seemed to be going somewhere with it's installed codecs thing -
theoretically that should mean that, no matter what player I loaded up,
it should all 'just work' [tm].
Does it? Does it bollocks.
I hate mplayer - it spews loads of debug stuff out to STDOUT. In fact I
don't know which is more irritating - the fact that it does that or the
fact that so many enconders seem to produce junk. I hate the fact that
some clips I discover it hangs on unless I forceably skip past the
problem spot. I hate Xine for being so fricking difficult to compile and
install.
Media players are a simple concept. Files comes in, choose codec based
on magic, play file through codec.
IT'S REALLY NOT THAT DIFFICULT.
*sigh*

From: Philip Newton
Date: 12:51 on 29 Sep 2003
Subject: Re: media players
On 29 Sep 2003 at 11:51, Simon Wistow wrote:
> Media players are a simple concept. Files comes in, choose codec based > on magic, play file through codec.> > IT'S REALLY NOT THAT DIFFICULT.
Oh, and what about the user interface? In Windows 95, the media player
was a little application with a title bar and windows default colours
and a slider and some buttons.
Now, it's some sort of monstrosity that's not even rectangular and has
funky tabs and stuff.
Other players aren't much better; they tend to come in funny oval or
rounded-corner or blob-shaped default skins, and if they're skinnable,
the most popular ones don't look much better, either. (Let's not even
mention how some of them seem to think they must look like a car radio,
hifi deck, or other hardware player.)
Is there anything fantastically wrong with just playing the audio or
video clip? An application that looks like 90% of the other $PLATFORM
applications should be able to do the job equally well -- and the user
can transfer his UI knowledge to this application.
This seems to be a common theme that runs right through all media
players, so yes, I'm an equal opportunity hater here, too.
Cheers,
Philip

From: peter (Peter da Silva)
Date: 13:57 on 29 Sep 2003
Subject: Re: media players
> Other players aren't much better; they tend to come in funny oval or > rounded-corner or blob-shaped default skins, and if they're skinnable,
If they're skinnable, they're shite.
Skinnable apps are the worst user-interface disaster in the past
decade and a half, NOT excluding the click-start-to-shutdown button
and Lotus Notes.
> This seems to be a common theme that runs right through all media > players, so yes, I'm an equal opportunity hater here, too.
Quicktime 4 seems to have started this trend. And people go on
about Apple's user interface skills -- sheesh. I'm sorry, Apple's
had their fair share of user interface blunders and then some. But
at least they're usually consistent blunders... which explains why
the godawful Quicktime 4 UI is spreading like cancer through Mac
OS X.

From: Gavin Estey
Date: 14:10 on 29 Sep 2003
Subject: Re: media players
On Monday, September 29, 2003, at 06:51 AM, Simon Wistow wrote:
>
> I hate the fact that I can't drag a file into Quicktime.
>
>
I hate Quicktime for making me click "Later" every time I want to watch
something. I don't want Quicktime Pro but I'll probably end up buying
it when Apple's persistence finally drives me crazy.
Gavin,